A study on the variation of beach erosion at Besut and Marang beaches, Terengganu, Malaysia

Abstract

Study on the variations of beach erosion at Besut and Marang Beaches was conducted to determine the changes of beach profile and the sediment characteristics at these particular areas. Sampling was conducted in six stations at Besut and Marang respectively and has been carried out in two times which is in May 2011 which represented before monsoon season and January 2012 which is during monsoon season. The beach morphology and sediment characteristics at East Coast Malaysia were greatly influenced by Northeast monsoon. From this study, it seems that during the monsoon not only erosion rate on the beaches occurred, but it is also dominated by deposition in certain areas. By comparing the beach slope degree of Besut and Marang from May 2011 to January 2012, Marang has higher beach slope degree than Besut such as at station 1, 2 and 3. Although, both Besut and Marang have a wavebreaker at the river mouth, however at Besut, there are series of groin was built at the shoreline. The rain distribution and wind velocity play a great role which influenced the changes of the sediment characteristics and beach profile changing. Moreover, the existence of man-made structure also has been caused a different effect to the beach morphology changes. From the study, the sediment in the both areas was dominated by coarser sand type and poorly sorted values. Most of the sample was distributed to very negatively skewed followed by negatively skewed sediment. Meanwhile, the distribution of sediment in the both study area was dominated by the medium sand type with poorly sorted and moderately sorted sediments. Based on this study, erosion process at Marang was most eroded compared to Besut. Sediment at Marang also coarser and poorly sorted compared to Besut.